Trip to Lapland

Going to Lapland is one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ trips, especially through the eyes of our 5 year old Dylan. A day package excursion flying from Norwich airport on Sunday 13^th December.

We kept the trip a secret from Dylan until arriving at the airport, aiming to give him a lovely surprise but more so to save our sanity avoiding all of Dylan’s incessant questioning of “WHY…” Milo decided he was too old for the trip – big mistake he would have loved it too! He stayed at home enjoying his space.

At the airport the whole process of check in, boarding the plane and flight was made fun as the plane full of passengers were all going to Pajala for the same reason. The memorable moments for me were,

• Dylan’s opinion of another passenger, who was not for Lapland but more likely off to work as a rough tough rigger worker, with his long pony-tail and t-shirt of a bearded skull and cross bones – Dylan’s assumption was “…he is a pirate, mummy, his cutlass must be in his bag…”
•  When the plane was visible to the passengers with ‘InterAir’ on the side there was a wave of amused uncertainty as nobody had heard of the airline, being a bit late leaving the vibe was how hard do we flap. The reality being the Polish owned airline was employed for its expertise to manage frozen conditions, perfect!

Pajala is in Sweden only 20kms from Finland being 100kms inside the Arctic Circle and only needed a further car journey for a day to be at the North Pole. When we disembarked from the plane it was into a really bright fresh minus 21 degrees which dropped to minus 25 degrees by the end of the day. The most noticeable sensation in such an extreme temperature was the manner in which the inside of your nose iced up as warm breath hit the coldness, this took a bit of time to get used to. The snow was pretty icy as fresh snow had not fallen for a view days but was expected in the coming week.

We were greeted by Laplanders dressed in traditional costume to embark a bus to Santa’s village where we were all togged up in thermal wear from head to feet, with lots of assistance to make the process really easy. We were told to keep warm by making the most of the different fires and tee-pees with refreshment, then ready to play.

Playing started with,

• Sleigh rides pulled by the reindeer, a really lovely gentle ride through the snow filled fir forests, sitting on fur hides.
• Tobogganing from the top of a reasonable slop on trays with little control. Dylan was good at this and kept going up over and over, I had a go and it was really good squealing fun.
• Star Angels, snow ball fighting and snow man building if you could find soft snow – we did some of these.
•  Sleigh rides pulled by huskie dogs, a really energetic ride. Dylan’s description of this experience was it was like riding the ‘Jolly Roger’, as the speed we were travelling over the ice ruts meant we felt we were airborne going up and landing back down, definitely hanging on to the sleigh and each other as tightly as possible. And yes we experienced huskie dog’s pooing whilst running fortunately no dogging was required! It was by far an exhilarating experience enhanced by the huge crying noise made by the huskies when waiting to run impacted by the dogs silence when running.
• The finale was to follow the long enchanted magic trail to visit Santa in his warm abode, with letter in hand Dylan was able to post and have a chat with the big man himself. Santa was very authentic and engaged with Dylan well. Conversation since has been associated with his Santa chat, telling us what Santa and his reindeer wanted for their Christmas Eve supper. The sleigh ride back to the meeting room at minus 25 degrees was perishing on my face with a definite need to warm up.

The journey home was much as we experienced coming in reverse to our waiting plane being as our flight was the only flight of the day in to Pajala. So it was interesting to watch the process of de-icing the plane as we waited on the runway ready for the three hour journey home with many sleeping children.

An absolutely fabulous trip which I believe I have captured in my pics and video below, it’s only a couple of minutes long accompanied by the music of ‘Lapland’.

Learning lessons with Successes (Belated Nov posting)

November has been tough for Milo as he has been learning life skills!

I was all set to share how well Milo had done to secure a job for himself by himself in a local computer shop. Milo had died and gone to heaven to think he would be surrounded by computers with the opportunity of hands on experience to repair and even build computers. Here comes the BUT - in the moment he had earnt that success of “yes I’ve got a job” it was taken from him as he is not old enough to be left in the shop. The owner had not realised Milo was only 16 years old and needs to be 18 years from Health and Safety. It was tough!!

In the time of stating this posting in November the events of Milo’s life have been wonderfully rewarding as well,

• He was then promoted from Corporal to Sargent in Air Cadets. What a thrill!!! In Milo’s eyes he sees this as a proper promotion which has the standing within the squadron he enjoys. This is him striding as a Sargent at Remembrance Day Parade in Wymondham.

• He was voted ‘Cadets Cadet’ by his colleagues and juniors at ATC, presented with an engraved cup

• He was nominated as the ‘Senior Prefect of the Year’ 2014-15 at school with a very warming speech given by one of the senior teachers, stating how he met every one of his prefect duties dealing with some difficult situations. He conducted himself in an unassuming manner and a significant support to his colleagues to assist and cover their gaps.

• And now he has turned 17 years old and had his first driving lesson on his birthday. He practices driving coming home from school, costing £1060 for 8months insurance on his dads policy, the experience a bit unnerved as Dylan is shouting from the back sit “…we are going to crash!...” So along with birthday cake with grandparents we celebrated with a meal at Pedro’s where the staff sang Happy Birthday and had to have a pud to get the candle!

At the time of finishing this posting it looks very likely Milo will get his job in the local computer shop in the New Year, riding on his heavenly cloud.

Exciting times!

‘Between the humps’ whilst ‘Running Rheas’

Life in the fast lane of business is all consuming so thanks for the nudge Donna to get back to my blog with encouragement from Milo. X

My first contract in West Sussex is going very well, having a significant impact on the ‘flow of patients’ through their hospital beds, thereby complimented with an extension to my contract to early December, and maybe beyond. The negatives so far have been a bump with a lorry and a speeding ticket!!

As always October brings my birthday. We planned a luxury weekend away the following weekend which was bliss in a beautiful bed, wider than our caravan, embracing the moment. So the weekend of my birthday was an outing with the boys, Milo told to humor is mother’s wishes which he did initially a sullen glee.

 We went to the ‘Camel Oasis Park’ near Beccles on a soggy blustery Saturday and had a really good time. It is a farm park with some usual farm animals and unusual animals like camels, alpacas, llamas, donkeys, goats, pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, wallabies both brown and a big white wallaby (felt surreal to me as it looked like the white rabbit out of Alice in Wonderland) with playing areas for little boys and bigger boys.

The approach being if you can reach the animal you can feed it and Jerry was in his element feeding, mostly goats as the donkeys made the most ex-ordinarily loud noise throughout the afternoon. There was at least a dozen camels as we were introduced to Norman, Elvis, Goblin, Bill, Jenny and Sonny then as a treat Dylan and I rode on Cuthbert. We sat in a saddle between Cuthbert’s two humps and held on to straps on the front hump then meandered around the park stopping as Claude wished, chewing greenery and straddle his legs to have a relieving pee. Dylan and I loved the experience of these huge but quiet beasts. 

There is no doubt the funniest experience was the Rhea. They look like small emu and conduct like swans using their wings to wrap around their body and coil their long necks over their body when lying down. Out of the blue they suddenly got up and ran erratically around their pen, darting from one point to another then jumping on the spot but their heads remained at the same point giving the illusion their necks consetine up to their head. We laughed and laughed. I hope you will get a sense of how hilarious the Rhea were by my short clip below.

Our October started with picking walnuts and getting much stained hands, poor Dylan looked filthy for weeks at school not a good look as he chased the girls. The month has ended with Halloween as we decorated Dylan’s awning with the biggest spider you have ever seen, got pretty artistic with pumpkin carving and a treasure hunt of treats for boys all round.

Fun in London.

Dylan got up one morning and asked about “…our Queen Elizabet who lives in a castle in old London Town…”, so the opportunity arose to take our wide eyed Dylan on a trip to see the sights of London, which turned into how many forms of transport can we get to ride in, in a day. It was a memorable day trip in the school holidays particularly light relief following the emotions of learning Milo’s exam results.

Transport is a Little boys delight!

Underground train

Train

Bus

Boat

Excitement of the journey to London was replaced by the delight of climbing on to the top deck of a bus. A beautiful warm breezy day and seating at the back of the bus Dylan was like a happy puppy dog with his tongue hanging out smiling with pleasure. The bus commentator was full of ‘tit-bits’ of information, history and entertaining, respectful to his listeners and as English day trippers we were in the minority. We spent two hours on the bus, all the way around our chosen ’yellow’ route observing all the key land marks of London from a number of different angles. Dylan either knew the sights or had heard of a few so was pleased to be able to recognise them for himself. Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, River Thames and London Eye were key to his dialogue of recognition. The one place he also knew and wanted to see was Buckingham Palace, we were able to walk back to the palace at the end of our bus execution.

On route to the palace we stopped for lunch in what turned out to be an exclusive burger bar with some quite intriguing cocktails. Milo picked himself a mock-tail which contained most of his weeks  ‘5-a-day’ consumption, very scrumptious though.

Refreshed and energized we stepped forward albeit getting way laid by both tacky then regal gift shops. In the first shop Dylan eye-balled himself a new policeman’s helmet and a red/clear double-decker bus rucksack for flat-Ted to go in so he could see everything on the trip too. The next shop we just had to go into was the Buckingham Palace gift shop, a unique shop, we settled on some fruit cake with the royal seal of approval for our men folk back home. The only problem with the two cakes were so heavy, we tasked ourselves to either hold Dylan’s hand or carry the bag of cake! Turned the corner and stood in front of the Queens home, and our young policeman was very delighted too as he was able to see the guardsmen taking in the size of the palace. We had to explain the Queen wasn’t had home today so we couldn’t go inside to say hello and have a cup of tea, not today anyway!

Boys at Buckingham Palace

The last leg of our trip was to walk to the river and go on a sight-seeing boat back up the river getting off at Tower Bridge. The boat trip was part of the sight-seeing bus package so made the day reasonable value for money and perfect for boys looking for a trip out doing something a bit different with no hassle in the day at all. We consumed the obligatory holiday maker’s very creamy ice cream at the Tower of London as we strode to the underground then train station to take the trip home.

Really great day out and pleased to have had the opportunity to see through the eyes of Dylan, who loved it. Again my technical adviser has created a wonderful video which gives a really great flavor of the day, its only just under two mins so do watch it.
Thanks Val she organised us well, great friend X.

'Steggles Management Ltd.'

Life has not stood still after knowing our Qatar move has been delayed.

So what am I doing?

I have taken the opportunity to approach nursing in a different manner, in that I have become self-employed working in interim management, our company is ‘Steggles Management Ltd’ with a directorship of me and my co-director, Jerry.

What does that mean?

When a health business or NHS have a specific task to be completed or need a person to fill a gap for a period of time and require a specific skill set. The business can approach an agency to ask them to find an individual to fit their requirements.

In the mean time I had shared my CV with a number of agencies with the expectation they would match me to a relevant role.

With a match to a role and my skill set determined, I was then invited to interview which resulted in a successful outcome, I was offered a job.

So now you’re asking, what is the job?

It is as Patient Flow Manager in Sussex Community Trust for, initially, a three month period.

Patient Flow means trying to improve how a patient moves through the system from an acute hospital to their discharge when the patient may require community services to support where ever the patient then lives. In reality I am finding the key essence of a Patient Flow role is, acting as the catalyst to re-build relationships which have been damaged through the manner the health economy is being governed. The outcome of an improved flow for patients is their length of stay in hospital reduces with the aim appropriate patients are in the acute/community hospital beds as far as possible.

Did you say Sussex, that’s a long way from Norfolk!

Yes it is, so I am away from home weekdays staying in a ‘home from home’ bed and breakfast just south of Horsham in Partridge Green. It is like living with your elderly parents. I’m looked after and cared for with a nice circuit to run in the evening and my breakfast ready each morning, which certainly softens the blow when away from home.

My job area is the coastal region of the trust which is five hospitals (Bognor Regis, Salvington, Rushington, Midhurst, Arundel) with a total of six wards. So the traveling between the sites is significant but OK.

The worst part of my working week is getting through the Dartford tunnel going home, to date I have always had to wait a significant period of time, so I use the time to make notes about my next blog posting.

OK that sounds good, how is it going?

I’ve been employed since the beginning of August and settled into the role well, concentrating on building a good rapport with the teams I have to influence.

So far I really enjoy this approach to working, I am focused on the tasks I have to achieve and able to take a step back from the local politics which is the bit that ends up being all consuming and exhausting.

I enjoy being in the position where I am paid a daily rate and the feeling of flexibility with a greater control over my own destiny.

In essence I am being paid a lot more money to do the job I was doing in my substantive role in the NHS with a lot less unpleasant hassle and long may this continue!!!!!! 

Festival of Quilts.

I have taken my quilt making to a different level by entering one of my quilts into the ‘Festival of Quilts’ at the NEC in early August. The creation I shared was my quilt I made for my parents golden wedding anniversary, see below.

I encouraged my sister to also enter a quilt she made with the primary school children she is a teaching assistant in Thetford. My mum, Sandra, and Jerry’s mum, Pat, are both helpers in this craft class and attend school each week, as you can see are proud participants in the display of Sara’s school children’s quilt. 

Eastern Daily Press – my article.

When I was not working I was a parent-helper in Dylan’s class at school and then decided to write about my experience. The education editor at the EDP was very keen to print my article and I’m really pleased to say didn’t change any of the initial draft sent to him. If you are interested to see it the link is below, Enjoy!

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/what_i_learned_from_helping_out_at_my_son_s_primary_school_1_4171150

“The boy did well!!!” (GCSE Results).

This has been our week of hope, expectation wrapped up in readiness to catch the fall out of disappointment and dismay. I am describing the emotions of waiting for Milo’s GCSE’s, significant element when waiting for the results is the planning  of all the potential alternatives if he does not make the grade for the hoped next step!

Milo has approached his exams in good form, studying hard in the laundry for long hours with intervals of light relief of you-tubing with his gaming videos supplemented with full calorie hot chocolates with all the trimmings. Since his mocks there has been a lot of concentration on his hand writing as he lost marks due to the illegibility of his handwriting. New stabilo pens and lots of practice later Milo entered his exams in May/June feeling reasonably confident.  

Caught in the act of studying!

Well the outcome of all his focus, time and effort has been really pleasing as he did himself proud, by the end of Thursday after collecting his results, he had achieved the following:

·         Two ‘A’s (ICT means using a computer and Religious Studies!)

·         Six ‘B’s (English Language, English Lit, Maths, Science, Citizenship, Geography)

·         Two ‘C’s (Science Additional and Drama)

·         Then one ‘D’ (Computing, this means the backroom activity of using a computer, i.e. programming etc., and we were told often was very dull!).

If you noticed I described Milo’s achievements in a timescale being ‘…by the end of Thursday…’, as initially Milo only looked at page one of his results. At the bottom of page two was his ICT result, an A, it took him a while to realise, this certainly helps to qualify all the time he spends fine tuning the intensity of his computing skill set (i.e. videoing, you-tubing, gaming, chatting world-wide etc.).

Milo’s next step has now been secured as he goes to Sixth Form at Attleborough to do three ‘A ‘levels being: Physics, English Language/Literature, Psychology – he is very pleased with his outcome too. A good week left of holidays with the weight lifted off his shoulders he is enjoying his space and sorting out his wardrobe – hopefully!!!!

Celebratory lunch at the Chinese buffet with a glass of fizz.

I’m sure there is no need to say but I will anyway,

 “By-golly we are proud of our Milo, he has done himself proud with good solid results to go forward and enjoy studying.”

Also giving a thought to Lily (our niece/cousin in Alysham) who has also received her GCSE results and excelled herself in her talented skills giving her the opportunity to aspire to her dreams of being the next designer. Well done Lily too. X

We kissed the Blarney Stone.

Intrigued by the sentiment of ‘kissing the Blarney Stone’ we thought we would take a day trip to Blarney Castle, which meant a flight to Cork in Ireland via Stanstead then a taxi ride from the airport to the castle. And we decided to do it in a day, exciting and great fun!!!

We now know we must give ourselves 1 1/2 hours to travel, park the car, and walk to the airport terminal to then go straight to departures. As always Stanstead security was the usual ‘mob shuffle’, the person who went ‘ping’ through the metal detector this time was Dylan who quite enjoyed the thrill of a search and shoe check. The security people were very kind to him chatting with him through the whole experience. I now know he should not wear his denim shirt at the airport as he went ping hence searched on the return journey too.

When we entered Blarney Castle grounds a sense of wonderland as we took in the scene. On the right a substantial stream scattered with wishing coins serenaded by a harpist on the stream bank in front of a corridor of trees with gaily knitted stockings the full length of the trees trunks leading to the castle. There is no doubt the castle portrayed an air of dominance by its sheer height and ruggedness. Making our way around the castle the intimidation of the structure was very apparent. The steps were steep through narrow stairways. The tunnels dark dingy leading to dank dungeons, Dylan had to crouch to get through, Milo was on his hands and knees. All the passages well-trodden, smooth uneven stone. Climbing to the top of the castle was strenuous with our heart in our hand as Dylan leapt around less familiar with the potential dangers. Jerry’s anxiety was more acute due to his added fear of heights!!!

At the top of the castle is the ‘Blarney Stone’, once kissed the gift of ‘eloquence’ is received. The stone is reached by lying flat on your back, head back over an opening with an instruction to hold bars either side of your head then reach down to kiss the stone. An ‘OMG’ experience! I did it with my heart in my mouth as it is so high up the castle with very little to stop you falling, fortunately aided by a man positioning each person. Milo, Dylan and myself kissed the Blarney Stone.

 Jerry declined! Going pale, feeling weak with wobbly knees he was sitting down behind a parapet, the top of the castle was moving for Jerry giving a response of he needed to get down to ground level, again!

With a refreshing cup of tea in the castle café, we were looking up at the castle when we were truly able to reflect where we had just been to kiss the stone. We could see from the underside by looking up where people were lying down and dangling. A reflection of Wow and OMG exclamation.

The castle grounds were very interesting to wander around with the

           poison garden, growing cannabis

           fairy glade

witches stone, kitchen, sacrificial altar, wishing steps and waterfall

druids circle and cave

pinetum

seven sisters

fern garden and waterfall, and more.

A long day finished with an ice cream on Blarney town green before we flew home. Definitely a lovely family day to remember when we embraced the ‘gift of eloquence’ – not that any of my boys need any more encouragement to talk. X.

Hope you enjoy Milo's 2min video below of our trip.

On Hold!!!!

I have an update to tell you, it came at the beginning of July. Our mobilisation to Qatar has been delayed by at least a year due to the significant delay in the building of the new hospital, the expected completion is looking at two years’ time. My position will be required to commission the hospital to ensure a safe opening which is why at the present time I am being told about a year. The reality is the hospital is already four years behind its initial opening timescale and now with a further two years delay. Of course this is if there is no further delay’s!

The reactions I went through was

•  initially ‘relieve’ as at last I knew what was going on
• then ‘shock’ at how long the wait was now going to be
• finally ‘Plan B’ was kicked into action!

Plan B being

•  is back to work for me but into interim management as a self-employed matron gaining work through an agency.
• Jerry’s actions were predictable as he thought ‘car’. He went to a garage Monday morning after dropping Dylan off at school and brought a burnt orange Toyota Aygo – already nicknamed ‘TOYGOCAR’ as the boys little run around.
• Our friendly landlord is very happy and welcomes us to continue our ‘pikie’ lifestyle, at Rose Cottage Camp Site NR18 9PX
•  Dylan will continue schooling at Rocklands  
• Milo is very happy to continue with his studies with his friends at Attleborough Sixth Form.

What I have been doing, beyond the caravan!!!!

Since March to end of summer term I have been a regular helper in Dylan’s class which has been an absolute delight. It has been quite an experience being the lowest level of adult position, being directed, undertaking the clearing up jobs but also a lot of supporting the children with their activities. It has been so ‘off the wall’ to what I usually do and Dylan has very much liked me being around I consider myself very lucky to have been given the opportunity to experience.

I have also nurtured my desire to start doing some writing both through this blog plus in publishing articles. The articles are:

•  Health Service Journal, describes the significant changes/improvements I lead in my last hospital with regard to discharge. The link to this article is

http://www.hsj.co.uk/hospitaltransformation/streamlining-inpatient-processes-can-reduce-discharge-times/5084676.article?blocktitle=Hospital-Transformation&contentID=7839#.VVDZT_lVikp

•  Nursing Management, describes how I went about making opportunities work for me by accessing and using Linkedin. A copy of this article is

•  EDP, is a reflective script on the value of being a parent helper whilst being in the position to observe Dylan at school, quite different from home. I was really surprised when the Education editor was delighted with my idea and then article, so just waiting for it to be published.

I have had the opportunity to prepare a quilt to be displayed in the International Quilt Festival at NEC, number 726 and looking forward to seeing it hanging along with the 1000 other competition quilts.

Then finally we have had lots of days out 'doing and lunching' as well as 'flying' a bit further afield to see places of interest. One of those trips was just up the road visiting ‘Peter Beales Roses’ at the peak of the flowers blooming. Milo has kindly put a video together to enjoy, the significant element missing is the most beautiful aromas as we wandered around the garden.

A Day in Dublin

Jerry and I have taken ourselves off to Dublin for a pint of Guinness and lunch just last Friday (26^th) and what a great day we had. The warmest day of the year so far in Dublin, no rain with a gentle breeze.

Our plane window view!

Again we went from Stansted, on the most expensive day of the week, at £60 each with Ryanair. The congested part of the whole journey to Dublin was the mile or two on the road coming into Stansted airport, after the motorways, the traffic was nose to tail very slow to the car parks. After this point the journey was flowing, even the security queues were moving. The flight was an hour and 5 mins, with a fair bit of walking through Dublin airport but straight into a taxi and chatty Irish man entertaining us for our ride into the city, and we had just missed the rain. The little gem he shared was “…don’t get a taxi back to the airport but use the air-link bus for just 6 euros...” So we did!

We had decided the purpose of our trip was to visit the ‘Guinness Storehouse’ and to get a feel for the city by enjoying a sightseeing bus tour initially before we wandered the streets and took in the music, cuisine and ambiance.

Decorative pint of Guinness

We entered the largest Guinness glass ever to go into the Guinness experience and what a creative, imaginative whilst informative approach the attraction had. The information was easy to follow and engaging whilst tantalizing all senses along with wonderful activities as  

•  Learning to professionally ‘taste’ a Guinness sample
• Attending the Guinness Academy to learn to ‘pour’ your own pint – Jerry attended receiving his certificate!
•  I enjoyed my complimentary pint on the 7^th floor in the Gravity Bar with its 360 degree panoramic view of Dublin, see my video below.

Under the waterfall in the brewery. 

At the Guinness Academy

 

The 'Fish on the Bike' advert - Do you remember it?

 The guided bus tour was really good and took to all the places of interest, engaged with lots of notable gems of dialogue drawing attention to detail which may have been missed. So we felt we had seen the city without having to do anything very much, really easy!  We then thought we should wander the streets and around the River Liffey for a bit before dinner in ‘O’Sheas’, as advised by our informative taxi driver.

River Liffey, in the middle of Dublin.

Our view of Dublin was, what an easy city to be in, steeped in tradition and full of younger visitors/workers. It was kept constantly clean around the streets, the river did not have a nasty impact of smelling whist the air did not appear to be overly polluted with vehicle fumes. The roads are mostly wide lanes full of buses and taxis, apparently Dublin has more taxis than New York! It is a pretty, friendly and welcoming place to be.

Guinness Experience video made by me with Milo supervision!!!

Some interesting facts about Dublin:

• Duke of Wellington was a Dubliner, who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.
• Phoenix Park is the largest city park in Europe, 1760 acres.
•  In 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year lease for the four acre brewery. Each day 3 million pints of Guinness is produced at this brewery for Ireland, UK, Europe and North America.
• The green domed red brick building is known as St Patrick's Tower, its past life was a ‘smock’ windmill.
•  Croke Park is the 4^th largest stadium in Europe, in its time hosted a Muhammad Ali fight.
• Dublin Spire is 120 meters tall commissioned to celebrate the millennium, is known as the ‘Spike’
• Liberty Hall is Dublin’s tallest building at 16 storeys being 59 meters high.
• Dublin’s Convection Centre is the first carbon neutral convention centre in the world.
• Trinity College is the oldest university in Ireland.
• Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, was born in Dublin.
• Wicklow Mountain range is the source of 8 million litres of pure fresh water that flows into in to the Guinness brewery.

Milo's Prom

It was Milo’s prom last Friday (19^th June) and “WOW” what a wonderful occasion that was, especially for the school children involved but for the rest of us who were cheering them on.

Milo looked very ‘dashing’ in his dinner suit with bow tie, accompanied by his friend the very lovely Megan in her beautiful coral dress with jeweled decoration. They had matching flower decoration and looked an attractive couple for the occasion. By all accounts, as the events of the evening unfolded Milo showed his gentlemanly chivalrous side as he looked after his prom companion - no more than you would expect from Milo!

The final year of school children have finished their exams and left school and this was the final celebration for all that study. Having never been involved in a prom before, I thought the approach to the prom, arrangements and sense of occasion was a wonderful moment for both year 11 school children, for their families and friends but also just other people who came to enjoy the occasion. It was like the town had come out to celebrate with the children.

The prom theme was “007, you only leave once!” The school office entrance was transformed to a glittering reception area with formal arrival announcements made. One key aim of the prom after organising outfits is the panache of the arrival, which means it is all about what form of transport you can get your hands on to make the arrival impact. The parade of vehicles was managed very professionally the length of the school drive to the glitzy reception. Milo asked his Uncle Glenn if he could be chauffeured in Glenn’s Mustang, Milo and Megan gave the impression they were both pleased with their ‘arrival panache’. (Thank you Glenn, X), see the video below.

Milo had a really good evening and was buzzing all weekend, lots of really great pictures taken to remember the occasion by for a very long time. How lucky they are to finish their High School careers on such a high!

We wanted to celebrate with Milo the end of school acknowledging how hard he has worked, so looking to do something together we arranged to go go-cart racing at an international track, Ellough Park. I am surprised to say it was really really good fun. Jerry and Milo had some good racing, my aim was to reduce the number of times I was lapped by them and I did achieve this in the three sessions we had.

Jerry had the fastest lap of 1min 4secs and Milo was only two seconds behind him at 1min 6secs, (spoken in a whisper) my lap was 1min 34secs. This was in the dry then it absolutely chucked down with rain, after the worst of the downpour we carried on racing – spinning, skidding, getting splashed from all angles and got soaked through. There is no doubt we had lots of fun together, definitely the whole weekends events has been a moment in time to remember and cherish! X

Jerry's birthday - Falkirk Wheel

I thought you might be interested in the birthday trip I organised for Jerry just earlier in the month (May). We went to Edinburgh for the day to see the Falkirk Wheel!!!!!

For those of you who do not know, Falkirk is a town between Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland. The ‘Wheel’ is a feat of rather magnificent engineering whilst being intriguing to watch due to its shaping and impressive movement. The ‘Falkirk Wheel’ is a tourist attraction and working construction. Its purpose is to enable water traffic to move from Forth & Clyde Canal to the Union Canal and vice versa. The wheel has replaced 11 locks, so what took all day to do now takes 15mins in one turn of the wheel using the same power required to boil five kettles of water.

The idea to go and visit the Falkirk Wheel came from the channel 4 programme with Prunella Scales and her husband Timothy West narrow boating around British canals. As painful at times it was to watch a doddery couple give scripted commentary on a narrow boat, seeing the bit about the wheel was interesting to us all. Jerry and Kevin (my dad) were ‘dribbling’ with interest – so it became the ideal gift in doing something for Jerry's birthday, thereby avoiding getting more stuff. I became clever in my uncluttered mind to think outside of my box and came up with the brain wave of “we can do this in a day!”

We went with Ryanair from Stanstead leaving the camp site at 5.30am and returned just before 10pm, it was a fabulous day of experiences for all six of us as mum and dad (Kevin and Sandra) were part of the party too. This was Dylan’s first air flight and he was a ‘squirming worm’ of fidgeting hands and feet through the flight, a very excited 5 year old, with a taxi ride and boat ride to follow in the day. Milo really enjoyed the flight as he downloaded a GPS onto his phone and we got a running commentary throughout both flights of the speed, altitude and the cities we were going over, this added to the interest for us all. You might ask who the ones who got security searched were – it was the oldies, with bags emptied and drug swabbed. Dylan and I walked through and our lanky teenager wrapped in his parker coat did not bat an eyelid. This happened to the oldies both flight’s!!!!

We got to Falkirk by taxi and after perusing the wheel mechanics, along with cups of tea, cake and play area it was our turn to go on the wheel by stepping onto the boat. And what a surreal phenomenon - to be lifted out of the water, to be placed back in the water 35 meters above, to then gently sail down the canal into the tunnel, under the Roman antonine wall, to then turn around and do again.

The cost of the whole trip for all six of us (being return flights, taxi fares, boat ride and lunch) was £400, the flight was £35 return each.

It was such a successful day we came away saying where can we fly to again for a day??

Next trip planned is to Dublin later end of June for £60 return.

Milo recorded the majority of the trip going to Falkirk and has edited his film to music, it is just under 2mins long so take a look to get a tastier of our trip.

If you can not get the video to work on the blog then cut and paste the link below into your search engine.  

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq888f_T8_0